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Sunday Blog: Peaches Geldof

This time last week (6/4/14) I was reading a full page article in The Sunday Times ‘Focus’ section, written by Katie Glass, entitled ‘Look at Perfect Me’, about the ‘world’s most annoying show-offs … fostering a cult of perfection that puts no-one in a good light’. It was entertaining and very well written – highlighting the celeb-obsessed-Instagram world where we are inundated on social media ‘with images of perfection from the world’s biggest show-offs’. Katie Glass wasn’t to know what Monday’s news would bring, of course, but her article was illustrated with a shot of Peaches Geldof in a montage that included Marina Fogle, Jools Oliver, Rihanna, Giselle Bundchen and Abbey Clancy. Her article included a reference to Geldof – ‘unfortunate’ timing (or whatever timing you feel is more appropriate) – with the following: ‘On another Instagram site Peaches Geldof, 25, the television presenter and daughter of Bob, is updating her 59,000 followers with a running show-reel of pictures from her idyllic life: surrounded by giggling toddlers, daffodil-filled gardens and playful pups’.

The next day, however, the 25 year old Peaches Geldof was tragically found dead at her home in Kent, with the post-mortem examination so far proving ‘inconclusive’.

The Sunday Times today (13/4/14) has ‘World Exclusive – Peaches Geldof – The Last Interview’ on its front page – with the article appearing in the ‘Culture International’ supplement (that’s in the edition I bought here in Spain). It seems OTT to me – although the newspaper has at least stated that the fee for the article has been donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital, “the charity that the Geldof family suggested Peaches would have wanted it to go to.”

We don’t know what Peaches died of. Maybe her heart simply stopped. Maybe we’ll never know. But I felt nothing but sadness when I heard the news, sadness for ‘Saint Bob’, who I feel has done miracles not only through Live Aid but also in holding his entire and extended family together, after the death of Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence.

The day before Peaches Geldof died, she’d posted a picture of herself on Instagram, as a toddler with her mother. Since her death, her elder sister Fifi has this week posted a picture of the two of them together when they were kids, stating: ‘My beautiful sister … Gone but never forgotten. I love you Peaches x.’

We don’t really know what lives these so-called ‘celebs’ lead, what drives them or torments them. We thought we knew Philip Seymour Hoffman – we didn’t. We thought L’Wren Scott lived an idyllic lifestyle – obviously not. Instagram photos are simply … instant snapshots … messages. Maybe the ‘world’s most annoying show-offs’ aren’t showing off at all. Maybe most of them are crying out for help.